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Brunant Before the Romans
Brunant Before the Romans: An Older Changing History of Brunant is a 2018 book by Eric Vangraf and Emma Leclerc, detailing findings and theories on early Roman and pre-Roman settlement of Brunant. Their work, done as a follow-up to several academic articles and papers, is considered a first attempt at pushing back Brunant's date of settlement. Introduction As recently as the 1960s it was widely believed that Brunant was settled by the Romans in 276, no earlier, no later, and that it was the starting point for civilization in its islands. That it was referenced as far back by sixth century B.C. Greeks was merely a note in history, as no proof had been found of their arrival. Minor inconsistencies, like earlier Roman findings and supposed Carthaginian or pre-Roman ruins were dispelled as being of a later introduction, a period imitation or simply part of an elaborate hoax. Brunant before the Romans simply did not exist. Perceptions on said strict history, long a part of academic lecture and a scholarly pillar for schoolchild and expert alike, began to chance in the coming decades. The well-document 1967 expedition to Mermaid Island identified what could most likely be Carthaginian ruins, and even much academic doubt on the findings, and a second 1968 expedition could not reverse what only seemed the natural conclusion. Archaeological findings from the 1970s through 1990s led to finding more, though less imposing settlements aside from those in North-Central Brunant, centered around the famed Villa Fulvia. The new millennium has led to a resurgence in Archaeology, and new findings are pushing the boundary back as to the start date of settlement in Brunant. Dispelling the Roman Myth The historical near-tenet fixated on the 276 A.D. founding of Roman Brunant had its doubters even prior to the 1960s. The famed anthropologist-historian Herbert De Grote 1910-1963 devoted much of his life to finding evidence to Brunant prior to the Roman conquest. A question posed to him by one of his students in the late 1940s got him thinking: "why was Brunant not settled at Rome's peak". He led a number of trips to study Byzantine, Roman and even Arab ruins from 1949 to 1954 with Grijzestad University, and on his own from 1956 as financial support ended. In several books and articles, both in Brunant and abroad, he hypothesized as to why an island central to the Mediterranean had been spared conquest for so long, not only by Rome but even by earlier powers. How come the fairly similar Balearics, Malta and Corsica had histories extending to the Ancient Greeks and earlier, while Brunant's started and stopped with one date. Professor De Grote died in 1963, but not before several of his students, led by Alex Decker (and including future Prime Minister Henry Jorgeson) began to study the possibility of investigating the supposed ruins. Italian, Brunant and Israeli experts were contacted and eventually in 1966 the government allowed them a visit on the island. Field studies and meticulous digging, while comparing to photographs of other similar sites led to a general idea, that after laboratory work ended with conclusion: the ruins were Carthaginian. Some of the experts were not yet convinced, but by 1968, a second expedition came to similar conclusions, that while some parts were exceptionally well-preserved, the oldest-looking parts were indeed older than any previously-found Roman site. Category:Books